Southern Living At HOME and Custom Marketing Services Champion Explosive Growth with FORTE

December 24, 2003 - FORTE recently completed the implementation phase of a new Distribution Center (DC) for Custom Marketing Services (CMS), the third-party warehouse operator for Southern Living At HOME (SLAH). The comprehensive plan, design, and build project called for an automated 500,000-square-foot facility located in Calera, Alabama.

SLAH, the fastest-growing party plan company in the history of direct sales, has attained exponential growth since their 2001 launch. The new DC was commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2003 and is already delivering results.

CMS is successfully managing SLAH’s booming order requirements with near 100 percent order accuracy. In addition, CMS has had a 30 percent reduction in labor while order volume has increased nearly 50 percent. FORTE has enabled CMS to drastically increase order processing capacity and decrease order turnaround time. Previously, order turnarounds would approach 21 days. Now the distributor regularly ships orders the same day they are received at the DC. When necessary, the automated system is capable of picking and shipping an order within an hour.

With these added capabilities, FORTE has provided CMS with a Distribution On Demand (DOD) environment. DOD is the order-fulfillment state an organization achieves when it can respond—closest to real time—to changes in demand while shipping 100 percent customer-compliant orders at the least cost.

“We are very satisfied with the way FORTE has brought us to our current optimized state—increased capacity, near 100 percent order accuracy, reduction in labor,” said Dennis O’Brien, president of Custom Marketing Services.

Due to FORTE’s CONTINUIM™ methodology, a suite of Distribution Operations Improvement products and services, CMS is able to achieve optimal levels of DOD.

CMS is utilizing FORTE’s proprietary software, CONTINUIMi™, a Distribution Intelligence System (DIS). DIS synergizes the material handling equipment and Warehouse Management System responsible for directing SLAH’s orders. Data from these existing assets will be measured against key performance indicators to drive continuous optimization without impeding ongoing operations.

CMS originally fulfilled SLAH’s distribution requirements from a 10,000-square-foot area. The labor-intensive operation utilized paper ticket order picking, shopping carts, manual quality control and manual packing/shipping processes. To meet SLAH’s impressive growth expectations, the new distribution facility is capable of handling a 500 percent increase in throughput over a three-year period.

CMS’ new facility utilizes a high-speed sortation system, a variety of material handling equipment, and an intensive split case picking and packing operation with pick-to-light technology. Once the new building was constructed, the automation and distribution processes were operational in less than six months.

Press Contact

William Taylor
FORTE
(513) 398-2800
wtaylor@forte-industries.com